By now, it’s no secret how important choosing a great keyword is to your content marketing plan. But, just as Google’s algorithm is always changing, so are the available keyword tools to help with your overall keyword strategy.

There are a lot of options out there, just doing a search on “free keyword tools” will produce roughly 5,250,000 results! Thankfully, we make it our mission to stay ahead when it comes to all things B2B marketing. And, according to our parents, we make our living on “the interweb.” So, here are the top 3 keyword tools we live and breathe daily. Sit back, relax and grab a cool drink because we’ve done all the hard work for you. It’s time to make your keyword strategy great again.

Google Keyword Planner

As I mentioned in my blog post on free marketing tools, Google Keyword Planner is still the go-to resource for many B2B marketers. But, this year did bring about some changes to the tool. For instance, you won’t see detailed results unless you have an active Google Adwords campaign – you will only see data ranges. But, by simply having an account you can use this tool to search for new keyword ideas, get search volume data and trends, and multiply keyword lists to get new keywords.

Unique to Keyword Planner is the ability to filter out “negative keywords” or words you know might appear in your results, but you really don’t want to go after. This, along with some additional filters, like competition, average monthly searches, and suggested bid will really help minimize the unusable keywords you get back. Afterwards, you can drill down on the keywords that are most relevant to you.

Serpstat

As with most keyword tools, Serpstat does limit you to a certain number of queries with the free version. But, depending on your needs, you don’t necessarily have to pay for a subscription; registering alone will expand your queries per day from 10 to 30. Enter a core keyword and Serpstat will provide the top organic keywords, paid keywords, how the keyword is trending and even list competitors in organic search. And, it doesn’t stop there.

In addition to generating keyword ideas, this robust tool will conduct a website analysis, do some digging into your backlinks, and track your website ranking over time. But, our favorite new feature is the site audit where even the most inexperienced SEO players can find out where meta data is missing or page load speeds could use help. One could easily…ahem…spend a full day researching how a site performs against the competition.

Answer the Public

Ok. I’ll admit it. I’m a sucker for this guy in the woolen turtleneck. I don’t know if it’s because he reminds me of my 10th grade English teacher, or if I’m just looking for company because I work remotely (Yeah – I heard it, too...). But, either way, the homepage alone is enough reason to bookmark this in your list of favorites.

If you're stuck for new content ideas, I highly recommend this site as a starting point. As Answer the Public states in their 'About' video, “it’s not just about searching, it’s about creating inspiration.” With over 3 billion searches being performed daily, it’s about capturing what people are actually asking and then creating content that answers them. Think Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come.” How revolutionary! Once you enter a keyword or topic, you can even select which country you'd like to target. The resulting queries will be displayed either graphically (see below) or in a chart. If you’re a marketer tasked with the challenge of creating new content that will actually resonate with your readers, then this tool should provide some pretty good insight into what direction to take.

About the Author

Kerrie Clark O'Mara, Account Manager

Kerrie O’Mara is an Account Manager and mixed marketing arts master. She loves combining old and new marketing techniques to help clients get the results they need. She’ll usually be avoiding blogs at all costs, but when she’s forced to sit down and write, she’s doing it for the reward of her readers learning something new!